“Which people?”
After Beckett’s hasty report, and eager to distract attention from their heretical experiments, the War Powers Ministry detached a unit of Lobstermen to serve in the coroners’ raid in Bluewater. These marines, nearing the ends of their terms of service, and therefore doomed, in a few short years, to a slow and painful death, were deployed at strategic locations throughout the neighborhood. Beckett’s plan was to take a handful of his own men and a squad of gendarmes directly to the address, and to leave the Lobstermen to cut off any potential escape routes. His fear was that the men in their blood-slick bone armor would frighten the black market dealers into doing something stupid, which the Lobstermen would then respond to with characteristic deadly force.
Dead black market dealers would likely yield up little information, so the Lobstermen were kept in reserve. He and his men approached an unassuming warehouse-fully as unassuming a warehouse as any of the other warehouses in Bluewater, and provoking a hurried conference as to whether or not they were sure that this was the correct address. Beckett glared sullenly until he’d obtained the attention of the gendarmes, and then ordered them into positions surrounding the site. Telerhythmic tapping-in the form of a very specific, very simple signal-indicated that the Lobstermen were all in position, lurking dangerously in the dark.
“Your confederate, Mr. Vie-Gorgon? Claims that you unnecessarily killed, and excessively beat a suspect in order to obtain information.”
Beckett blinked. “Valentine? Valentine said that?” He shook his head, then winced at the pain this provoked. “Why would he say that?”
“Did you beat the man at Small Ash Abbey?”
“He had information. I got the information. I don’t see what the problem is.”
The man shifted in his seat, and shuffled his papers again. “I also have some notes here about the raid that you conducted last night.”
“Go,” Beckett whispered. James heard, and he, presumably, was sending out the tap-tap-tap that would transmit the order. Beckett and his men moved towards the front door. “Coroners!” Beckett shouted. “We’re coming in!” He did not wait for a reply, but let the two gendarmes with him break the rotten wooden door down.
In the dark, inside, there were ten or fifteen indige, glowing faintly blue. They wore tattered clothes, and were huddled together, speaking quietly to themselves. When Beckett and his men crashed through the door, the indige leapt to their feet and began shouting.
“Where are they?” Beckett demanded. “The men, where are Anonymous John’s men?” He was answered with a babble of pidgin Trowth and Indt. One particularly bold indige youth stepped forward and shouted directly in Beckett’s face.
“No more! No more here! No more here!” The indige said, his face glowing brighter as his choler increased. “No more, us! Just us!” The indige swarmed around the gendarmes, repeating this mantra.
“What do you mean, no more? They’re gone?” Beckett asked, his heart sinking.
“Gone, all gone! Just-”
A sudden commotion broke through the shouts. Two Trowthi men in shirtsleeves and worn trousers, burst from a door in the dark. They were being pursued by more gendarmes, who waved cudgels and fiercely blew their whistles. Beckett shoved the indige aside and raised his revolver. “Stop! You two men, stop where you are!”
“No more, gone!” The indige insisted, grabbing at Beckett’s shoulder.
The old coroner shrugged him off. “Stop, I said!” The two men had crossed the interior expanse of the warehouse, and were fumbling in the dark with something. A weapon, a secret door? “Stop!” The indige grabbed at his gun arm. Beckett snatched his hand away and struck the youth across the face. The indige collapsed, bleeding hot blood from his cheek. The coroner fired two bullets into the air. “FUCKING STOP!”
“You struck a young man who had no relationship to the case, is that correct?” The Moral Officer asked.
Why can’t I remember his name? “He…he was interfering. He was trying to help the suspects escape. I had…he was interfering.”
“You didn’t feel that eight gendarmes, and a contingent of Lobstermen, would be sufficient to prevent the suspects’ escape?”
“What is this about?” Beckett demanded. “What is this really about? I’ve never…no ministry has ever done this before. My fitness for work has never been questioned before.” Why the hell can’t I remember his name? “I obtained information, I used it to apprehend two men engaged in the sale of heretical instruments. That is my mandate, that’s my duty, and I performed it. What the fuck else do you want from me?”
The men froze. The indige froze to see their fallen comrade. The gendarmes, many of whom had never known a moment of fear in the lives-and if they had, joining the gendarmerie had been a means to permanently escape the need for that fear-fell upon the two fleeing men like rabid dogs, beat them, dragged them away from the wall, roughly shackled them. The indige family, or clan, or however they arranged themselves, had knelt around their fallen member and were all whispering softly to him in Indt.
“You,” Beckett snapped at the fallen indige. “You, get up.” The youth didn’t move. The boy, Beckett thought. He can’t be more than fifteen. Beckett kicked him in the ribs. “Get up!” The indige sat up, leaning against one of his fellows. “You lied to me. You told me they were gone. Why?”
The indige, sulking, seemed disinclined to speak. Beckett very nearly lost his temper and hit him again. One more person that was refusing to help, one more person that didn’t want to talk. Didn’t the boy see that it was keeping quiet that was causing the problem? That they could fix everything if people would just cooperate? “Why?” Beckett rasped again.
“He paid,” the indige replied at last, shrugging. “He paid.”
“Who did?” Though Beckett suspected he knew the answer. Yet another Trowthi selling out their family and their city for a few crowns. And if someone was selling themselves into treason, only one man was paying.
“Anonymous John.”
The Moral Officer was silent for a very long moment. Then he put his papers away and stood up. “We’re done here. I will contact you if I need any further information.” The man left, closing the door behind him. Beckett stayed in his chair, rubbing his eyes, craving a veneine injection. He wanted to yell, to scream his frustration at the Moral Rectitude Commission, at the stupid indige that didn’t know he was trying to help him, but most of all at the dangerous amoral bastard whose involvement in Trowth’s heretical and criminal operations Beckett was coming to suspect was nearly universal. The indige’s voice echoed in his head.
“Anonymous John.”
Twenty-One
“Will continue the operation from here. Take no further action.” Karine read aloud. “Events proceed apace.”
“That’s it?” Skinner asked. They were in a cafe near the Stark, surrounded by a bustling, working-class clientele. Since the events at Emilia Vie-Gorgon’s party, Skinner had become increasingly paranoid about being observed. No one could think it odd that she was out with her assistant, of course, and the noise of the cafe would effectively obscure their conversation from casual eavesdroppers. There could be knockers listening in, and if there was anyone in the city who could afford to retain the services of a knocker it was Emilia Vie-Gorgon. But there was nothing to be done on that score, so Skinner resolved to not be worried by it.
“That’s it,” said Karine. “It’s not even signed.”
“Well, of course it’s not signed,” Skinner replied irritably. “Who leads a secret cabal and then writes their name all over everything? No one.” She sighed. “What about the paper? Handwriting? Anything familiar?”
“It’s typed,” Karine said, “regular paper, I suppose. I don’t really know. Maybe Mr. Valentine? Isn’t his family in printing?”